Do yall understand that hot chow chow is one of the best things on earth? I absolutely love it and look forward to eating it every summer on my peas, greens, hot dogs, etc. This recipe was made up this year after my mom’s garden had a huge crop of green tomatoes (10 pounds!) and I am so looking forward to having enough chow chow in my pantry to last me the next couple of years! This recipe is spicy and uses lots of peppers, so if you don’t like it hot, I suggest taking the seeds out of maybe 1/2 of the peppers used. Also, this recipe can easily be cut in half (or more), but I’m going to post the recipe for the 10 lbs of tomatoes I used since that’s what you’ll see in all the pictures. It made 15 pints of chow chow and 5 pints of hot pepper sauce to keep for my greens and other deliciousness! That’s because after the chow chow was drained out of pot we had so much delicious liquid leftover we decided it would’ve been a sin not to keep it! After drizzling it on buttered cornbread last night we decided we were definitely glad we did 🙂

Ingredients:
10 lbs green tomatoes
2 bags sweet mini bell peppers (or use 2 each of yellow, orange, and red)
2 cups of hot peppers chopped (we used an assortment from the garden of jalapenos, serranos, and a few banana peppers)
6 onions
4 c white vinegar
2 c apple cider vinegar
2 c water
5 c sugar
1/2 c salt (use pickling salt if you have it)
8 whole cloves
1 T mustard seeds
1 T whole black peppercorns
24 dried cayenne peppers
1 tsp turmeric

1. First you’re going to get your pickling liquid going. In a sauce pot combine vinegars, water, sugar, salt, spices, and dried cayenne peppers. Bring to a boil, then lower heat and allow to simmer for 30 minutes.

2. Now start prepping all your veggies to go into your food processor (tomatoes, peppers, onions). For tomatoes cut the tops off and cut in half or quarters depending on the size of the tomato. Quarter up your onions and make sure your peppers are small enough for your processor to handle. Start processing in batches and add to a large pot.

3. Once your pickling liquid is done simmering and all your veggies are processed and combined in the large pot, pour STRAINED pickling liquid over the chow chow mix and bring to a boil. This will take a while and you’ll have a considerable about of liquid in there, so be patient:) After it comes to a boil, bring the heat down and allow it to simmer about 40 minutes or until it looks like this.

4. Now it’s time to start canning! Start putting chow chow into your hot jars (I’m assuming you’ve prepped your jars) and filling them up to about 1/2 inch from the top. You’ll want to sort of let the juice run out, not quite straining the liquid, but getting mostly the chunky stuff to fill up your jars first, then pour the liquid in at the last. This will give you 15 pint size jars. After you’ve canned your chow chow, you can take liquid that’s leftover at the bottom of the pot and save it for yummy hot pepper sauce. I can’t even tell you how delicious this is!

5. Water bath the jars for 15 minutes, then allow to sit and seal on your counter top.

6. Now it’s time to make yourself a southern meal of peas, greens, cornbread, chicken, etc, and sprinkle some hot chow chow all over it and go ahead and sign out for the evening! You’ll be so glad you took the time to make these little green gems into this delicious concoction!